50 Guitars and All That JazzPhotos from the collection of Tiny Timbrell

Hilmer J. "Tiny" Timbrell, the West Coast Gibson rep, tech and
salesman, was also a photographer and collector of photographs. As a
sessionist he belonged to a group of LA based guitarists
that did the majority of session work around town for both the movie
studios and the labels. Long before select groups nicknamed "The
Wrecking Crew," or Motown's "Funk Brothers" and Nashville's "A-team,"
they were essentially the first wave of professionals that got the
calls. They consisted of players like George M. Smith, Alton "Al" Hendrickson,
Bob Bain, Al Viola, Barney Kessel, Howard Roberts,
Tommy Tedesco and Dennis Budimir to name but a few among them, the latter not arriving on
the scene until the '50s when jazz became popular.

Bob
Bain got his start in film session work at MGM with Andre Previn, one of the first film composers to write parts for the electric
guitar. He
said that George M. Smith, one of the guitar greats of the '30s and
'40s that he described as brilliant, was responsible for the studio guitar player really being
recognized as a musician. "He was the guy who laid the groundwork for
us all. Prior to that, guitarists were only thought of as rhythm players
who played ukulele-type chords." In 1942 Smith wrote the book "Modern
Guitar Method for Rhythm and Chord Improvising."1

Howard Roberts used to play with Bobby Troup 6
nights a week at a club called the Encore. Bob Bain said that
because of that schedule he and all the other guys would
occasionally fill in for Howard with Bobby.

Bob said that in the early studio days, “most of the composers were
not used to writing for guitar and the average orchestra would not have
one.
If they used one, it would be almost as a solo instrument for a certain
scene an likely the only time they did it was for a sequence that would
require a banjo, or for a Western sequence.” Smith, who had played
on all the John Ford movies like Grapes of Wrath and Tobacco
Road said that he made the major part of his "living before World
War II with the banjo. Electric guitar was out completely. If you were a
jazz player before the war, you really didn’t work except when they
wanted jazz guitar. That was a bad reputation to have! There were three
teachers, and they knew nine chords – three each!” he replied. “That’s
about the way it was. I had to do all the research myself. See, those
days, no one could read – it was all by ear – so they hired the
guitarists and mandolin players a week in advance to teach them their
parts."1

Smith recalled the before World War II he
had to learn to read piano parts or he wouldn’t have worked. "I
started looking at Gershwin’s and Ellington’s music, and I saw the
beautiful voicings. I remembered all the good jazz tunes that Jack
Teagarden played and noticed these beautiful changes kept reoccurring
all the time. That was the basis of the book – it was based on bass
notes." Further, "you paid a hell of a price playing in those
days. Sometimes they’d call you in for a $30 session, and you’d work one
hour with the orchestra and then they’d make you stay around and play
solos for two hours. They’d use those solos any way they’d want to – you
didn’t even know what picture they used them in.”1

The situation began to change when Hendrickson, Bain, and Tony Rizzi
demonstrated their sight-reading abilities. Bain said that once
composers found a guitarist who could read they began to use him. In the
1950s, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet became the first show to
prominently feature guitar parts. At the time, there were so few
guitarists able to play the music that the union had to give Bob Bain
permission to play into overtime. "Ozzie and Harriet was a hard show,
with the only guitar book in town," Tommy remembered. “In those days,
once you ran out of the five or six guys who could read, it was all
over. When I finally subbed for Bob on Ozzie and Harriet, I was like a
hero in this town because I was able to do it. That’s how astounding it
was at the time for a guy to be able to do something."1

According to Tedesco, "in the’50s I found it was kind of hip playing
jazz, like when Barney Kessel, Howard Roberts, and a few of the guys
came in. They were featured, like when Bob [Bain] started playing on the
Peter Gunn show with Henry Mancini. That was a big turnaround for
jazz-type guitarists in this town. All of a sudden there was jazz work
and jazz sounds. At that time, having a jazz score was as far removed as
it would be to have somebody come up and tell you that all the music
next year is going to be Hawaiian. When the tune ‘Peter Gunn’ took off,
people said, ‘Oh, my God – I don’t believe that.’ That’s how far out it
was to score that music.”1

When Elvis began making
films in Hollywood with Love Me Tender, Vito Mumolo, a staff
guitarist at Fox, was the first LA guitarist to record with him. That
was the first film to not use either Scotty, Bill or DJ for any of the
soundtrack work. For the next few films Elvis insisted on his own band
and the majority of recording was done at Radio
Recorders. A sight
reader, Tiny Timbrell, was the only LA studio guitarist on the sessions
that also included Dudley Brooks on piano. Howard Roberts was the first
of the jazz players to record with them with the film Flaming Star
in August and October of 1960 though he didn't start to make a name for
himself in the jazz world until around 1962.

Bob was
brought in by Tiny to work on several sessions with Elvis. He said he
normally didn't play a lot of that type of music then but Tiny said he
wanted him around if they were handed lead sheets so that he would have
someone else that could read and transcribe. Bob remembered recording at
Radio Recorders as early as the '40s when many of the labels didn't have
their own facilities. John Palladino at the time was the engineer there
and was the first to run Bob's guitar with a patch cable direct into the
board so he had complete control. Bob was also a staff guitarist for Fox
studios, in addition to MGM and Universal, and worked on sessions when
Elvis made pictures for them and recalls one of the first times in
particular when they were called into Radio Recorders. They got there
around 9 o'clock at night and Elvis was sitting at the piano. Elvis told
them that he was just working on something and suggested they go across
the street to the Formosa, a small bar and restaurant, for an hour for a
drink. He said when they came back he still wasn't ready. They didn't
start to record until around 11:30 and Elvis was very courteous and
professional, knew exactly what he wanted and they wrapped around 3 a.m.3

Dorothy Remsen and Ann Mason on harp, recording The 50 Guitars of Tommy Garrett at
United Western Recorders - Feb. 1961

According to Bob Bain, Dorothy Remsen was considered the best harpist in town and could read anything. Bob said she was like a jazz player
and could improvise in that if they didn't have a part written for harp they could
hand her the parts written for guitar and she would come up with something using that.
Ann Mason was the staff harpist at Fox Studios, the first chair, initially starting with
Al Newman and others after him.3

Thomas Lesslie
"Snuff" Garrett was originally from Oak
Cliff, Texas and got his start at KILF in Dallas. He used to setup and
sell records at the Sportatorium and remembers when Elvis, Scotty and
Bill were playing area gigs. After working as a broadcaster in Wichita
Falls he relocated to LA to work in promotions for Liberty Records,
ultimately as both a producer and an A&R man. His first was Dreamin
for Johnny Burnette, a top 10 hit, followed up with Bobby Vee's Devil
or Angel. He then produced Burnette's classic "You're Sixteen,"
and scored his first No. 1 hit in February 1961, with Vee's Take
Good Care of My Baby. He contracted with a childhood idol of his,
producer/arranger Ernie Freeman, to help him arrange string—section
parts, perfecting "a sound that glued together."2

In February of 1961 Garrett also produced the first of several guitar
based instrumental albums entitled The 50 guitars of Tommy Garret.
Ernie Freeman wrote most of the arrangements and Tommy Tedesco was the
lead guitarist for the sessions. Bob Bain recalled that Ernie often
wrote many arrangements for guitar on the fly including a lot of the
stuff that Tommy later used and was renown for. The album was recorded
in three night-long sessions at United Western Recorders' Studio A on
Sunset Blvd. The idea was to use as many of the top session players
(guitarists) in town that weren't otherwise busy and the lineup varied
due to availability between the albums.3

The theme of the first album was South of the Border, and was
all acoustic. Snuff said all of the guitars used were Gibsons, archtops,
in addition to classical and traditional mariachi instruments. An array
of Gibson headstocks feature prominently on the album cover.3 Bob Bain
was quoted, "We’re so used to playing the electric, where everything kind
of comes out easily. To play an acoustic guitar solo with a good sound,
you have to really concentrate. It’s an entirely different technique."1
The Guitarron players were locals that played regularly in Mariachi
bands in the Alvera Street section of LA. One had recorded previously
with Bob on a record for Peggy Lee.3

Hall, though, was
noted more for his rock recordings. Originally a sessionist in New York,
he had relocated to LA in the mid 50s and played guitar on Larry
Williams' Dizzy Miss Lizzy, Chan Romero's Hippy Hippy Shake, and
Johnny Burnette's Cincinatti Fireball. He also played bass on Richie
Valens' "La Bamba." As a talent scout for King Records he discovered
Billy Ward and the Dominos, whose members at one time included Clyde
McPhatter and Jackie Wilson.4

Bob Bain used his 1928 L5 that he's used on thousands of sessions. It
had originally been built for Frank Victor of Victor and
(Harry)Volpe. Several of the other players used L5s and Super 400s
and Tiny Timbrell his pre war L5PN, by then equipped with
a string damper. Though Barney Kessel was
pictured there with
his new signature model, probably one of the first
produced by Gibson, it was not used on the recordings.

The Kessel guitar was based on an experimental
prototype developed in 1960 and officially released in 1961. It came
in "Custom" and "regular" versions, featured a 17-inch wide, 3 inch deep
double Florentine cutaway body with a laminated spruce top and laminated
maple back and sides finished in cherry sunburst.

The Custom, like
Barney's, originally sported a two-piece maple neck, a quaver inlay on
the 400 size peghead, bow-tie banjo like inlays on the fingerboard,
bound f-holes, Grover Roto-Matic tuners, a Tune-O-Matic bridge and gold
plated parts. The tailpiece was enhanced with a rosewood shield carrying
a plastic nameplate. Prior to 1963 the neck joined the body at the 14th
fret resulting in an uncomfortable heel but was later moved back to the
17th fret to facilitate better access. Barney was not known to use them
often.

The following month, March, sessions began for the film Blue
Hawaii. By
this time Elvis had been recording with Nashville A-teamers since
entering the Army in addition to Scotty and DJ after his return.
According to Peter Guralnick, Elvis flew out to the Coast on March
18 in preparation for the Arizona benefit on the twenty-fifth and the
start of shooting on Blue Hawaii two days later. Elvis was scheduled to
record the Blue Hawaii soundtrack in Hollywood, and he had flown the
whole band out from Nashville for the session and the concert. They
relaxed and rehearsed at the house on Perugia, then went into Radio
Recorders on March 21 to record a full fourteen-cut soundtrack album
under the watchful eye of Hal Wallis over the next three days.5

In addition to Scotty, DJ and the Jordonaires, the band hand been
rounded out by A-teamers Bob Moore, Hank Garland, Boots Randolph and
Floyd Cramer. In addition to Tiny, for the sessions at least, the A-teamers
were augmented by LA sessionists that included Hal Blaine, Bernie
Mattinson, Dudley Brooks, George Fields, Bernie Lewis, Fred Tavares and
Alvino Rey.6 Snuff said he remembered
recording with Hank in Nashville, and was with him the night
before Hank's career ending accident. He said he recalled him being sort
of hyper, or "squirrelly" then and surprisingly, a vibe of contempt
from the management in Nashville if you also recorded in LA.3

Fife
& Nichols Music Store in Hollywood was started by Al Fife and
originally located in Hollywood on Vine St. When Wallich's Music City
opened on the corner of Sunset and Vine they relocated upstairs, which
is around the time that Tiny started there. There was a downtown
location too, which was run by Uley Aptel, but most of the studio guys
preferred the Hollywood location because of the parking and traffic. Milt Owen
worked in repairs at Fife and Nichols for years then later at Barney Kessel's Music World on Yucca and Vine.
Still later, he worked at Stein
On Vine until his death.3

At some point while in town, before leaving
for Hawaii, Scotty, DJ and the A-teamers paid a visit to Tiny at the
store. There they posed for several photos with Andy Nelson. As a seasoned and
accomplished player, Nelson had been working for Gibson/Epiphone since
1955 promoting products and conducting clinics across the country. He
had also been very involved in the design of various models, like the Gibson
L5CT associated with George Gobel, and the ES-355, a model adopted later
as B. B. King's Lucille. In 1957 he was instrumental in getting
Howard Robert's endorsement with Epiphone and in 1962 helped design
Robert's signature model, produced first by Epiphone, and then Gibson.7

Garrett's use of strings on Burnette and Vee‘s records had formerly
caught the attention of newcomer Phil Spector and Garrett offered him a
job at Liberty as head of A&R on the East coast. His stay at Liberty was
said to be stormy and he left amid suspicions that he was saving his
best work for his own label. Later, in 1962 Spector produced He's a Rebel,
which served to define his "wall of sound" of the '60s. Further, it
ushered in a new era of "first call" sessionists, Tommy Tedesco among
them, that would play on a plethora of hits that followed, including
records by/for the Byrds, the Fifth Dimension, Simon & Garfunkel, Johnny
Rivers, the Carpenters and others.2 They would later be nicknamed
The
Wrecking Crew, though Garrett, who considered Tedsco one of his
best friends, has no recollection of ever hearing a reference to it
during his years producing in LA.3

Snuff would go on to
produce hits by Gary Lewis and the Playboys, the Monkees and others,
later Cher. In all, he produced a total of 14 of the "50 Guitars"
albums, at a rate of two a year.2 Elvis' soundtrack sessions in LA
would continue to use a mix of Nashville and local players over the next
few years that in addition to Tiny, at times would include Bob Bain, Al
Hendrickson, Barney Kessel, Bobby Gibbons, Tommy Tedesco, and also Billy
Strange and Glen Campbell, until June of 1968. Aside from the sit-down
segments, the NBC Singer Special featured all LA musicians as did all
the remaining soundtrack sessions on the West Coast.6

In
1972 Bob Bain left the studios and joined Doc Severinsen's band when
Johnny Carson and "The Tonight Show" moved to the West Coast. The
popularity of jazz guitar held until the early 1970s, and then according
to Hendrickson “the jazz reputation got real bad again." Tedesco
attributed the change every few years this way, “A rhythm section
will stay hot for three or four years, and then it’s who are the next
musicians? And then a few years later it changes again. The rhythm chair
is a monstrous one. You just have to be a good musician, get the sound,
read, and then it’s all over. With the guitar you gotta be a rocker, a
fusion, or whatever. Whatever style is in, that guy’s going to be hot
and just tear it apart for a few years."1

Bob Bain started playing professionally before World War
II, during which he toured Europe and North Africa with the U.S.O. and
actor George Raft. In 1945 he replaced Dave Barbour in Tommy
Dorsey's band which at the time also included Nelson Riddle on trombone, Buddy DeFranco on
clarinet and Buddy Rich on drums. Later, while playing with the Phil Moore
band, they recorded a bop record, Bop! Goes My Heart,
withFrank Sinatra. He did more records with Sinatra, including
Young At Heart and I've Got You Under My Skin, but was
eventually replaced by Al Viola when opting not to tour Europe. It
would've been cost prohibitve given his non-stop work at Capitol at the
time. In
addition, he also played on albums by Mel Torme, Peggy Lee, and Rosemary
Clooney. Among the records he did with Nat King Cole included Unforgettable
and the guitar intro section to the song Mona Lisa Bain
essentially wrote, but didn't play.*

However, in these great bands, the guitar was restricted to rhythm parts. Bain has always believed Les Paul was responsible for bringing guitars to the forefront. Bain's own band, The San Fernando Playboys, made recordings in Les' living room. He later played local gigs and recorded with Harry James and his big band and then with Andre Previn and his trio.*

“Originally, in motion pictures, the only things you played were rhythm parts, which were chord symbols. A banjo part might have the melody written out. You would rarely get a mandolin part because most of the time, a violin player would double on the mandolin. Most guitarists tuned their mandolins like the first four strings of the guitar."*
Bob also played mandolin on Dean Martin's That's Amore.

His credits in Television include Ozzie and Harriet,
Mission Impossible, Bonanza, Peter Gunn,
Batman and the Munsters among many others. With the big
bands Bain played a blond Gibson L5, with high action because its sound
cut through the orchestra, and with Previn his ES-150 Gibson Charlie
Christian model.* In 1953 Bob bought
his 1928 sunburst Gibson L5. It was the one used on
Garret's
50 Guitars album and on thousands of other sessions. It originally
belonged to Frank Victor, renowned for his guitar duets in the '30s with
Harry
Volpe. Bob bought it in New York from his widow. 1928 was only
the second year of that model to feature block inlaid fret markers
instead of dot.

In 1972 the guitar was stolen from his home during a break-in
along with other guitars and equipment, including a Coral
Sitar.
Most of it was soon recovered though, all but the L5. When Bob
mentioned it and asked about it he was advised not to pursue it.
Evidently someone, possibly of rank, recognized it for what it was and
decided to keep it for themselves. As fate would have it though,
years later John Jorgenson found it for sale rather cheap, $600, bought it and
in 1984 while playing on The Tonight Show with Roger McGuinn, he met Bob
and arranged to get it back it to him. John said Bob gave him $750 for it, since he had already received about
that from the insurance company.

John was able to identify it as Bob's because of the
custom truss rod cover still on it that was given to him by Tiny
Timbrell, inscribed with his name. These covers at one time must
have been a custom accessory available through Gibson. Several of the
same type have shown up on instruments over the years, some, like Bob's,
personalized with the owners name. Elvis played an early Gibson
SG with one in Easy Come, Easy Go, and the owner of Hank
Garland's 1955 #3 Byrland also has one.

Recently, Chris Hillman was visiting with Bob and was
able to bring the 1928 L5 by Tracy Longo's shop so he could get us some
additional close-up photos. Tracy, Bob's guitar tech, was currently
doing some work on another of Bob's guitars, an L-4 cutaway that
belonged to Barney Kessel. It had a humbucker he was replacing
with a Charlie
Christian pickup, a Seymour Duncan
humbucking variant.

Bob continued working in the studios until 1972, when they got word “The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson may come to the West Coast. A few of the original members were Pete Chrislieb and Tommy Newsom on tenor, Ed Shaughnessy on drums, Ross Tompkins on piano, Jimmy Zito on trumpet, and Joe DiBortolo on bass, all under the direction of Doc Severinsen.
Bain played with “The Tonight Show" band for 22 years. Today, he continues to write, record, and produce.

Recently, Jay Timbell found
some parts in his Dad's collection that we believe were originally from
Bob Bain's 1953 Telecaster.
He also found a Gibson PAF Humbucker and an old Charlie Christian
pickup. Tracy Longo believes it too may have been from Bob (see
above). He said, Bob did have his Charlie
pup taken out of his ES-150 his dad bought him, and had a Humbucker put
in for a while. The CC I replaced it, with I believe, was from Barney
Kessells L-4 cutaway. Bob has the Kessel guitar here and is picking it
up next week with the Custom Seymour double blade CC PUP I just put in.

Recently I heard from a fan that pointed out a mistake I
had in the captions in the photo(s) above of the 50
Guitars sessions. I've since corrected my mistake and decided
to include his correspondence here to provide some more insight and
background of one of the players.

Hi James,

Thanks for posting. I must point out that in the pics, Milt Norman is incorrectly named as Vito Mumolo.
Milt was a friend of mine, and, by the way, the best guitarist of the fifty shown here.

Milt Norman is on the left with the glasses. He is holding his Stromberg Master 400 which he bought as a young man for his extended gig with the Tony Pastor Orchestra. I believe he was Joe Pass' predecessor in that band. Later in the 1960's Milt toured as Bobby Daren's
guitarist. Tommy Tedesco has cited Milt as the fastest player he had encountered, but that hardly tells the story of this master musician.

Earlier this year, I was at a bar in San Francisco with Ned Boynton, and Marc Schwartz after a gig. All three of us had studied with Milt, and 20 years after his passing were still reflecting on the influence he had on us. It was life changing.

Here's an album cover where you can see a young Milt and his Master 400:

I just wish there were more information available, and of course recordings.

His family would have those, I know he had a son named Mark and lived in Florida at the end of his life.
Rosemary Clooney wrote about their affair in her book "Girl Singer

." Yup, what a life!
... and by the way, I got to play that Stromberg (yikes!)

Thanks,
Don Yaffe
October 10, 2013

section added October 10, 2013

All photos on this page unless
otherwise indicated are the property of the designated persons or
company, any unauthorized use or reproduction is prohibited.